UK Seeks Strategic Relationship With India
By ANDREW CHUTER
Published: 11 Feb 2011 05:35
BANGALORE, India - Britain wants to build a strategic relationship with India comparable to the one it shares with the United States, according to Peter Luff, the defense equipment and technology minister.
Luff has been in India this week promoting his country's defense exports effort in the region, but the visit also had a wider significance.
London and Delhi are stepping up their alliance, and one of the early signs of that is in the defense field, where the two governments are preparing to sign a military science and technology cooperation pact at the end of next month.
The deal involving Britain's Defence Science & Technology Laboratory and their Indian counterpart, the Defence Research & Development Organisation, is seen by Luff as a key part of the growing defense alliance between the two countries.
Speaking to Defense News during the Aero India show in Bangalore, Luff said he thought "the opportunity for both nations in a truly strategic relationship are huge, and I am delighted as defense minister to have the ability to be able to drive forward this relationship."
"Britain has a potent ally and a true friend in India, and there is no reason the relationship should not be as important and as deep as the one we have with U.S.A. as India regains her place in the world," Luff said.
With India inevitably becoming a strong industrial power in many areas including defense, "it is in the true interest of any country to be part of that picture," he said.
Building a relationship with India has been a top priority for the Conservative-led coalition government, which came to power in Britain last May.
Just two months after his election, Prime Minister David Cameron led a huge mission of government ministers and business executives to India to improve relations and build trade.
Luff's visit to Delhi and Bangalore is part of that ongoing charm offensive hoping to catch a bigger slice of one of the fastest growing defense budgets in the world.
Britain sold military kit worth 1.5 billion pounds to India last year, including Hawk jet trainers and AgustaWestland 101 helicopters.
The defense minister said the sales drive was not just about rescuing company order books at a time of tightening spending at home, but a chance for doing something of mutual benefit to both sides.
"I see the engagement of European industry, and I hope the UK in particular, with India as enlightened mutual self interest. We have technologies we can bring here which India can't develop. It's to our very strong mutual advantage. I don't like the idea of us being here to save ourselves; it's a chance to grow together," he said.
Britain is part of the Eurofighter Typhoon effort vying for a $10 billion deal for combat jets for the Indian Air Force.
Luff said a win for Typhoon would greatly boost the pace and depth of industrial ties, but that its loss would not be the end of the effort as India offered export opportunities across a wide range of projects.
India joins bilateral defense science and technology cooperation agreements with the U.S. and France at the core of Britain's strategic defense policy, he said.
"My view is that there are three S&T relationships of real importance to the UK, they are America, the recent bilateral relationship in Europe with France, and there is India. We can't prioritize every market, but we are very clearly serious about these," he said.
British officials here are reluctant to detail the dozen or so programs earmarked to kick off the co-operation program, but early opportunities are expected to include work in computational fluid dynamics, energetics and armored vehicles fields.
DRDO chief Vijay Saraswat said Feb. 11 the program would cover materials, sensors and armaments.
The two sides will jointly own the intellectual property rights emerging from the work, Saraswat said.
Luff wouldn't say if the research and technology work would result in co-operative weapons development programs, but he indicated that was the likely outcome.
"There are many opportunities, and I think a genuine open dialogue between the two research organizations is almost bound to bear fruit. I am not, though, going to be one of those prescriptive politicians with a plan telling you what we are going to develop and when," he said.
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